HAVANA--The Trump administration banned cruises to Cuba under new restrictions on U.S. travel to the Caribbean island imposed on Tuesday to pressure its Communist government to reform and stop supporting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The tightening of the decades-old U.S. embargo on Cuba will further wound its crippled economy, as well as hurt U.S. travel companies that had built up Cuban business during the brief 2014-2016 detente between the old Cold War foes.
The State Department said the United States will no longer permit visits to Cuba via passenger and recreational vessels, including cruise ships and yachts, as well as private and corporate aircraft. The U.S. Commerce Department told Reuters the ban would be effective from Wednesday, giving cruise lines no grace period to change destinations and creating confusion among cruise passengers.
"Please tell me that my cruise to Cuba (in 18 days) is still going to be a cruise to Cuba," beseeched Matthew Watkins on Twitter.
Royal Caribbean Cruises announced that ships sailing Wednesday and Thursday would no longer stop in Cuba and it would provide updates on future cruise destinations. Carnival Corp said it would have additional information in "the very near future". Norwegian Cruise Line likewise said it was monitoring the situation.
The United States will also no longer allow so-called group people-to-people educational travel, one of the most popular exemptions to the overall ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba. Travel experts said some groups may get around that by instead using one of the 11 other categories still allowed.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had announced the new restrictions in April as part of its rollback of the U.S.-Cuban detente under former President Barack Obama and its broader battle against socialism in Latin America. Cuba experts say the Trump administration appears to be partly eyeing the presidential elections next year, with the key swing state of Florida home to many Cuban-American exiles who welcome the harder line on Havana.
"The Administration has advanced the President’s Cuba policy by ending ‘veiled tourism’ to Cuba and imposing restrictions on vessels," said a tweet from Trump's national security adviser John Bolton, who has led the U.S. campaign against what he has called the "troika of tyranny" of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. "We will continue to take actions to restrict the Cuban regime’s access to U.S. dollars.”
Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel said the island would not be intimidated. "They have not been able to asphyxiate us, they will not be able to stop us, we will continue to live and we will conquer," he wrote on Twitter.
